Life Lessons from Dating Internationally

Imagine two people from different backgrounds coming together in the name of love.

Despite differences and overwhelming cultural challenges, they choose to remain strong and to rise above whatever obstacles come their way.

While this might sound like a fairytale straight from a romance book, love stories like this truly exist. You might even be living in one.

There’s a high chance you’re reading this because you’re in an intercultural relationship or maybe planning on venturing into the world of intercultural dating.

Either way, there are valuable life lessons to learn when we open ourselves to exploring love overseas.

Life Lesson #1: We need to look past stereotypes and see people beyond ethnicity and cultural associations.

Stereotypes are over-generalized ideas.

That being said, it’s not okay to prejudge a stranger based on preconceived notions. Otherwise, we fail to genuinely know them as human beings.

We need to remind ourselves that everyone is unique. We all have our own specific identities and personalities. Though our cultural values, upbringing, and personal makeup may have an influence over us, it doesn’t mean it’s all that we are.

While we belong to a certain race or ethnicity, we’re still people.

As a culture, we all have varying differences, similarities, strengths, weaknesses, habits, traditions, and customs that are personal to us. It goes the same way with foreign people we meet on international dating sites.

Once we look past the oversimplified images attributed to culture, we start to see each other’s complexity. You’ll be shocked to know how interesting and different some people can be despite known stereotypes about their country.

Life Lesson #2: There is no right or wrong way to do certain things, especially when they’re based on established societal norms and traditions.

Countries around the world have different sets of rules, laws, and moral ideas. Simply put, societal norms differ from one culture to another.

What we might consider right might not be acceptable in other societies, and vice versa.

For example:

In Latin countries, it’s normal to argue over minor issues in relationships. It signifies passion, love, and care for one another.

Meanwhile, in Japanese culture, it’s considered inappropriate since it violates the “gaman” — a Japanese virtue that teaches calm forbearance in all dealings.

Now, if a Latino and a Japanese woman were to date, they’ll have to face intercultural dating problems such as the above-mentioned. There are two ways they can approach this challenge: Either find a middle ground or accept each other’s cultural differences in their entirety.

The bottom line is that it’s inevitable in interracial and intercultural relationships to face such a dilemma.

For those of us who are flexible enough to deal with it, we’re blessed to learn a life lesson from it — not agreeing on everything is okay, as long as you try your best to push through it and make things work.

Life Lesson #3: We need to get out of our comfort zone to enjoy the full dating experience.

While it’s true that dating overseas allows us to broaden our horizons, it’s not until we get out of our personal bubble that we can truly experience and appreciate the positive effects of intercultural dating.

It’s because when we stop feeling afraid and hesitant about trying new things, we start to open ourselves to new experiences. Consequently, we start to do things we wouldn’t have otherwise thought of doing before.

It’s worth pointing out that there are so many experiences you can gain from dating someone from another part of the world.

You get to try exotic food, participate in interesting traditions, explore foreign sights, and so much more. Hence, it’s important for us to get out of our comfort zones when dating interculturally to push ourselves to try new things.

Life Lesson #4: Immersing ourselves in a new culture helps us realize and appreciate differences.

When interacting with someone from a different culture, we naturally want to learn more about them and their foreign ways.

Through our efforts of wanting to learn, we start to become less ignorant. As a result, we become less judgmental and start to wholeheartedly accept that people are going to have different choices, habits, and economic dispositions in life than we do.

Over time, we learn to appreciate differences in our culture.

The more we learn, the more we broaden our understanding of how the outside world is different from our own country, until finally, we see the beauty in it.

Life Lesson #5: We need to be willing to get to know and understand a new culture to fully immerse ourselves in it.

In other words, intercultural dating helps us keep an open mind.

A lot of things are going to be foreign to us when we date foreign women (or men) — such as beliefs, traditions, food, and experiences.

For us to have a successful international dating experience, we need to be able to willingly put aside our reservations and fear of trying new things. We need to be adventurous and say yes to unique and foreign experiences.

Life Lesson #6: Distance is merely an obstacle to test the strength of our love. We either let it break us or make us stronger.

Lastly, we need to accept that dealing with distance is part of international dating.

It’s fine if your foreign match lives in the same vicinity or country as you, but that’s not always the case.

Most people who date interculturally commonly have long-distance relationships. This means they have to constantly deal with the distance through video calls and the use of social media sites.

However, if your love and emotions are genuine, there’s no reason for distance to destroy your connection. Unless your country has terrible internet service providers, then that could potentially harm your long-distance relationship.

Love Transcends Cultural Differences

Though there are challenges that come with intercultural dating, they shouldn’t discourage us from finding love across borders.

Being in an intercultural relationship is going to be one of the most interesting and unique experiences a person could ever have. It would be a shame to be afraid of it just because of the cultural differences you’ll have to face.